Trash Polaroïd
by TheodoreIsNott
Summary: "You, you'll die alone." Translation of I-AM-CHUCK-BASS's Trash Polaroïd. UA.
1. Chapter 1

**Title: **_Trash Polaroïd_

**Genre: **Angst/Romance x UA x Dramione

**Disclaimer: **Everything belongs to JKR; this story has been written by I-AM-CHUCK-BASS, who gave me the authorization to translate it. It can be found here in French : ** u/2233274/I-AM-CHUCK-BASS**

**Summary: **What's your interest in here, little girl? Hypocrisy has a caviar taste, Chanel n`5 is debauchery's perfume and rich people's kids drown their mediocrity in coke rails'. Your virtue is almost lame in this golden hell. So what's your interest in here, really?

**Note: **This fan fiction originally is written in French by I-AM-CHUCK-BASS – I can only but redirect you to her profile if you can read French, as it's a golden mine. It's one of my favorite ever, and I could only translate it to English for you all to read it and appreciate it, I hope, as much as I did. It's still ongoing, and has 16 chapters by July 22, 2014. I thank once again IACB for her authorization and, more than that, for all the time she puts in her writing, that are always beyond expectation. I hope you'll like this fan fiction, and that my translation is alright. (English is not my first language, but I think I'm fluent enough for you to appreciate this reading).

So, without any more talk, chapter 1!

* * *

Hermione Granger tapped her foot to the beat of the jazz music that was in the elevator. Her movement was more unconsciously nervous than anything, to be true. The music was sliding through an ear to escape by the other and, during that time, her body had to be occupied by following the measure. Her mind also had to dwell itself by concentrating on the little architectural details that decorated the luxurious habitat. But all of these could not attenuate the apprehension that was growing in her as she approached from the twentieth floor.

_I'm going to meet Lucius Malfoy._

Hermione held herself at the helm in the back of the room, taken by the same vertigo that took her each time she told herself these five little words. It was to pinch her arm every thirty second as it sounded so much unrealistic, too beautiful to be true. And somehow, it was. She had _really _won that national photography contest, beating a billion of Britannic candidates. She had _really _received that trophy, at little gold argentic on a base where her name was engraved. And she _really _had a meeting with Lucius Malfoy, this living photography legend, to work on an original project with him. Bloody hell, bloody hell, _bloody hell! _If all of this was a hallucination or a living dream, then Providence was a bitch.

… fifteenth floor, sixteenth floor, seventeenth floor…

It was Harry who had pushed her to participate to this contest. Pushed her, I'm saying? Begged her, harassed her, _forced_ her to subscribe. Seeing that she was still not convinced, he had finally choose some of her photography without her knowing and sent them before the due date. The quarrel that followed this decision had been the most dramatic the two best friends had ever had in their seven years of friendship. However, Harry had been the first person Hermione thanked when she received her prize.

… eighteenth floor, nineteenth floor, twentieth floor. Terminus.

The brunette took a deep breath and then step into the hallway, the sound made by the footsteps of her black Docs Martens eased by the grey thick carpet. Her amber eyes were glaring everywhere around her with the amazed look of a new-born, looking attentively at the big photos that were on the corridor's wall. Hermione already knew each one of them by heart but she couldn't help being stunned in front of the photographs. The angle of view, the lights and shadows game, the grain of the image, the respect of details; _everything _was worked until perfection was reached. It was such a perfection that the young high school girl only felt like crying seeing how much she wasn't on the same level.

The hallway was leading to a big round room with marble ground. Hermione moved forward timidly, the stress ball growing up in her stomach.

"And you are?"

The brunette jumped. She hadn't seen the office that was at her right. A blonde woman, wearing a low necked blouse, her lips painted in a provoking red, was looking at her with a condescending glare.

"I, er, in fact I'm Hermione Grang…"

"Ah, it's you," interrupted the secretary before pointing nonchalantly at the leather armchairs next to the hallway. "Sit down; I'm calling Mr. Malfoy to tell him you've arrived."

Hermione nodded and then headed toward the chairs to install herself. And she waited. A minute, five minutes, fifteen, thirty. Or maybe was it only ten minutes. Her stress was expanding time so much that, when the young woman of the reception told her that her boss was ready to see her, Hermione felt as if she had stayed sat for an entire day. The secretary made a sign to follow her and got into another colossally big hallway leading to a big oak tree door. During the short time of the route, the brunette tried to regularize her breathing while keeping her eyes on the vertiginous high heels of her hostess. Her fingers were literally putting down the shoulder strap of her bag and she never felt that nauseous.

And what if he'd change his mind and find her art horrible? And what if they had mistaken the winner? And what if he found her work too amateur? The three knocks the secretary stroked at the office's door took the young lady out of her spiral of worries and she raised her head while swallowing.

"Enter."

The secretary moved aside and made a sign to Hermione, telling her to go in the room. She had just entered when she heard the door slam behind her.

That was it.

The brunette moved of small little timid steps while looking around her. The office itself was half the size of her apartments. The furniture were little and in black and white, as where the photography on the wall. Victorians' glasses were at least two meters high and the ground was of black carpet. Leaning on a big ebony desk, Lucius Malfoy was turning his back to her and talking in his mobile phone. Hermione then waited awkwardly on the door's landing for the photographer to finish his conversation, which lasted exactly eight minutes. Hermione had had her eyes straight on the clock of the room. Lucius then took his mobile phone of his ear and started writing something on it – which took one minute and a half – before putting it into his pocket to, finally, turn toward her.

His eyes evaluated her rapidly before taking the chair behind his desk and sitting on it.

"Sit down," he finally said, pointing the black velvet ottoman facing his table.

Hermione did as she was told in a robotic demarche but stayed perfectly straight on her chair. Then, she suddenly remembered what she was transporting in her bag and dug into it to find a carnet she handed him. He raised an eyebrow.

"What is it?"

"My book. I listed every photo that are, err, the one I think I executed the best."

The student looked at him turning the pages with an anxious glare. She had always been really timid about her passion, and people who had seen her work could be counted on a single hand. Having her work being evaluated by the Master of the 8th art was beating everything. Lucius eyes' were slowly looking at the photo, only skimming through some, glaring more attentively at others, skipping pages. He finished by closing the book without even seeing everything.

"How old are you?" he asked, crossing his hands on the book.

"Seventeen and a half."

"Hmm." He cracks his articulations. "Year 12?"

Hermione nodded but felt like she needed to be more precise:

"I did the admission process for a Beaux-Arts faculty next year."

"Which one?"

"Beauxbâtons."

"It won't match with you," he answered immediately.

Hermione stood a few seconds without really knowing what to reply.

"Well…" she started, her eyes hurting her seriously. "It's true that eh required level is really high and I…"

"That's not it," he interrupted her, "You're too talented for a school like Beauxbâtons".

There, the high school student had to hold the sofa's arm for not to fall back. Did he just say that she was too talented to go to…? No way. That was not possible. She must have dreamt.

"What are you doing in the coming weeks?" asked Lucius while sitting back in his leather chair.

"I…err… nothing special", blurted out Hermione, still dazed. "I'm in vacation during two weeks and then, I'll go back to class."

Lucius nodded and then played with his finger on his desk.

"I saw the photographs you sent for the prize. The theme were really… interesting."

Hermione kept for herself that Harry had taken them totally randomly in her photo lab before sending them.

"Since when do you practice?"

"Since… well, a long time. I had my first camera at ten."

"Do you have a particular model?"

Hermione crossed her eyebrows, not sure what he meant by that.

"Which photographers inspire you?" then reformulates Lucius.

"Oh," finally understood Hermione before thinking about it. "Well… There are pretty much, to say the truth… I really like Doisneau. Henri Certier-Bresson, too. And…"

"Are you French?" he guessed.

The young high school student let out a nervous laugh.

"Yes," she admitted.

Lucius had a smirk that gave Hermione the vague impression that he was mocking her.

"And I? Don't I inspire you?"

And there were the rumors about him confirmed. He was talented but had an incorrigible egocentrism.

"Yes! Yes, of course!" immediately rectified Hermione. "I really admire your work, and I find your technique unique. I know almost all of your photos by heart and I have a big version of _Narcissa _printed out. It's at the top of my bed," couldn't help but add the young girl.

This time, she was sure that the beginning of the smile that was showing on his lips was all but mockery.

_Narcissa _was extracted from a series of photographs of the same name that were presenting Lucius Malfoy's wife. This photo shoot had been made in the 90's, when the two of them had just gotten married, and the legend said that this piece made eternal the cult that Lucius had always felt for his spouse. _Narcissa _was one of this masterpiece made a bit randomly that signed the entry of a photograph in the legend. Hermione couldn't get enough of reading again and again the art magazine where she saw it for the first time, hoping to find out the mystery ingredient that made this series that hypnotic.

Lucius opened the book of the young lady sitting before him randomly and stroked the pages without really paying attention to them.

"I have a project I've been thinking about for a couple of years now."

Hermione listened carefully while her interlocutor played with the side of her book.

"But it's a personal project. Well, at the same time personal and public, I may say."

The brown-haired girl chewed her upper lip, waiting for him to say what he actually wanted to.

"To make this project, I need someone that is a total outsider of my personal environment but who can enter it and see how things change."

"I can do it," had to say Hermione.

"That's why you're here," answered Lucius. "Do you know why your photos made an impression on me?"

"… no?"

"You have a way to take things à vif, in a raw way that may seem to be amateur-like at first view but that happens to be, when we look at it twice, totally worked on. Some of your work are gentle, some don't have any pity. And that's what I'm searching. No pity."

Hermione nodded deeply. _But what then…?_

"Are you leaving for holidays?" he asked suddenly, dropping off the precedent subject.

"I had to go to Spain with my parents the first weekend of the holidays but that was before I received the letter from the prize. They left without me."

"So you're not leaving", he resumed.

Hermione nodded again then risked herself at asking:

"Why?"

"I want you to come live at mine during this two weeks," said bluntly the photographer.

The high school student raised her eyebrows, stunned. Did she just get invited to stay over at Lucius Malefoy's? She discretely pinched herself for the fortieth time of the day. But no. All of this was totally real.

"To… To live at… at yours?"

"Yes. And from tonight. That's my project." He announced, solemnly crossing his hands. "I want a family album. But not any family album that would take the dust in one of the living room's shelf. I want an album where each photos would give out the personality of someone, his soul. I want raw. I don't want any gift. Not even with me. I want that each portraits, each life-scene, each feelings, each pose are authentic. That we can tell ourselves when closing the book that this is how the Malfoy's are.

Hermione could not stand on her chair. What she just heard sounded like pure melody to her ears. That was the opportunity of her life. That was paradise on a plate. Entering the Malfoy's life, putting herself in their skins, living their lives… it was beyond imagination.

"So… You mean that I would live with you and…"

"You'll leave us each day during the two next weeks. You'll follow me, you'll follow Narcissa, and you'll also follow my son, Draco. You'll take all the photos you need to and, by the end of your stay, you'll give me the final product."

"And are you sure that I won't disturb your family by following them permanently?"

"I doubt that," mocked Lucius, "They love having attention on them."

Hermione nodded, thinking of other questions she could ask.

"And… And what if the final work don't please you?"

"I doubt that," he answered before getting up, "We say goodbye until tonight, then?"

The brown-haired mimicked him and shacked his hand for the first time.

"Yes. See you to… oh, what is your address?"

"You'll see all of this with my secretary, Rebecca."

"Alright."

She took her book but Lucius pulled it towards him before she could take it off the table.

"I'm keeping it," he said with a small smile.

"Oh. Alright."

She started walking towards the door but changed her mind and turned back to Lucius.

"You'll… When are you going to give it back?"

But Lucius was already in another discussion throughout his phone. Hermione then disappeared from the office.

* * *

"Seriously?" almost strangled herself Ginny at the phone, once her best friend had finished telling her all about the meeting. "And you have his address?"

"Malfoy Manor, 106 Slytherin Road, London," recited by heart Hermione while throwing a pair of jean in her travel's bag.

"Oh my God!" shouted Ginny. "That's totally crazy! And you're going to go? What time? You'll tell me how it is? Oh my G… Hey! Harry, bloody hell, stop it. B…"

"Hermione, don't tell me you're going!" then said Harry's voice.

The brown-haired girl choose a pair of Converse in her dressing that took the same direction than her jean.

"What? You don't want me to go?"

"Of course I don't want you to!" shouted the brown-haired guy. "You don't know what you're getting into. What tells you that this guy won't, I don't know, sequestrate you?"

"Well yes, of course!" laughed Ginny in his back.

"Harry, you were the first one to tell me to participate to this prize. Now that I have this opportunity, you want me to back off? That's a bit of a bipolar attitude."

"I don't want you to back off, only to be careful. Can't you go in the morning and go back home at night instead of staying over?"

"I could, but I already said yes, so I'm going to go. And he's not living alone, he has a wife and a child."

Harry had a mocking laugh.

"Oh right, that changes everything."

"Harry, Lucius Malfoy is not a killer or a pervert."

"And how could you know? You said he's living in a Manor, no? Who tells you he's not hiding slaves in his c…"

"Alriiight, give me this mobile phone," said Ginny. "Don't listen to him, Mione. He has his paranoiac stage once a day. It happened on you today."

Hermione laughed while closing her bag with a single hand.

"Tell him I'll be careful if that can put him at peace." She putted the bag on her should, pouting at the weight of it. "And, honestly, I don't think I'm the most careless of us two. Who did to himself a pretty bad scar on his forehead while trying motorbike without permit? Hmm?"

Harry protested in the back ground –_it was not a motorbike anyway, it was a quad!_

Hermione verified that all the lights were shut down, cut the power in the house, locked the windows and assured herself that her bag contained all her photography material, then closed the door. Arrived down, she commanded a taxi and gave her the Manor's address. Sitting at the back of the vehicle, Hermione looked at the end-of-the-day urban scenery by the window. A ballet of color where melted signal fire, shops' ensign and cars' light. Everything where her eyes stopped seemed to be beautiful thanks to her amazing great mood.

Her taxi got into an impasse with loads of luxurious residences and ending with a gigantic portal that made it impossible to see what was behind it.

"This is where you're living?" asked the chauffeur, impressed.

Hermione nodded slowly as a smile slowly grew on her lips.

"Yes. It's here."

She paid the bill and got her things out. She headed towards the interphone, took a deep breath and pressed the unique button. The high school girl waited, ready to present herself into the microphone, but saw the portal open itself for her the second later.

A gigantic castle was facing her, that gigantesque Hermione almost was terrified. She stepped one step forward and walked up the alley, not having enough eye to admire the manor and the perfectly cut garden. The brown-haired girl stepped on the rocked stairs guiding her through the porch, where she pulled down the doorknob to find herself in an entry hall all built in mosaic and glass, a stair built in oak in the middle of the room. Statues in bronze and marble were on the walls, and a big chandelier in crystal was covering the faraway ceiling.

"Damn!" couldn't help but mutter Hermione while dropping off her bags.

Her glare was going from a thing to another, not getting tired of what she was seeing. If the entry hall was already putting her in such a state, what would the other room do to her? Her eyes raised while following the majestic emerald tapestry that decorated the stairs and felt down on a shadow that was going down. A young man, to say it all. Blond, chemise, jean with holes, he was putting on his vest when his eyes stopped on Hermione. Judging by the resemblance with Lucius, the young girl deduced she was dealing with his son, Draco.

He continued to step down the stairs but slowly, his ashes-like eyes not leaving once her stare. And it was an aggressive glare, threatening. He supposedly did not like her presence here. Or maybe was it his way to look at people. In all cases, Hermione really didn't feel safe. She however stood her head up, not shivering when he arrived at the ground level, cigarette between her lips, and heading towards her while lilting it on. He stopped near her, took a long and first sniff of the nicotine bar he had between her fingers, then breathed out insolently the integrality of the air stocked in his lungs at Hermione's face. The young girl helped herself from coughing but started drifting back, even more when Draco bent toward her to mutter:

"Try following me, and I kill you."

* * *

I hope this first chapter pleased you. I expect to post the second one in about two or three weeks, it will be more focused on Draco! Don't forget to leave a review, it will be transmitted to the writer!


	2. Chapter 2

**Hi guys! Sorry for updating so late! I've had quite a lot happening this last few weeks, holidays and such! Anyway, here is the second chapter, I really hope you'll enjoy it! Don't forget to leave your thoughts on it ;)**

**Ramyfan : yup, no magic! Too bad for your French, hopefully my translation will be good enough for you to enjoy! Thanks for your review ;)**

**Chapter 2**

~_ i wanna be your dog_ – The stooges ~

Pansy Parkinson made herself a way painfully through the mass of dancing people perspiring at the rhythm of the deafening dub step echoing in the room, her hand before her mouth, her other arm stretched in front of her as a pathfinder. She finally got to the service door after what seemed to be an eternity and pushed it precipitately to go down the dirty stairs of the bar with an unsteady pace. Her eyes searched urgently the panel indicating the toilet's direction and everything near her began to seem more and more blurred and all these fucking voices melting with the music sound didn't help her to concentrate and that fucking green disgusting light diffused by the neon that definitely gave her even more the need to puke. She avoided a drunk couple that found it smart to fuck on the stairs and held herself at the bar, taken by a sudden nausea. Toilets. Pansy continued her way, breathing hardly. Her gaze was a simple green fog. Need to find toilets. Her legs could almost not support her anymore. Need to find… The young lady puked all the alcohol in her stomach on the floor.

"Fuck," she muttered before using her black transparent top to clean inelegantly her mouth.

In vain. A new wave passed the frontier of her lips the second after, forcing her to hold herself at the wall with her arm to remain steady. Her strength totally out of her, she finally let herself drown on the floor, eyes closed. Ten minutes were necessary for her nausea to leave little by little her body. Using once again her shit as a towel, the young girl stood up gauchely before going towards the stairs to enter back the room.

Climbing up the stairs seemed to be like climbing up the Mount Everest. Not even talking about the high heels she was wearing – what had gotten in her mind when she bought those freaking whore shoes at more than five hundred box that, moreover, were killing her feet?! – But she finally was able to climb up the top despite her unsteady legs and her nauseous state. The music aggressed her ears brutally and she fought once again to make herself a way through the mass to finally reach the table she had left a little before.

Astoria, Blaise, Draco and Theo were still sitting, two bottles of Magnum Champagne before them, and few empty cups near it. Pansy felt down on the leather couch, totally indifferent at Greengrass and Malfoy that were kissing in the most indecent way ever near her, and stared with an empty eye at Blaise dividing a portion of cocaine in five equal parts. He took out of the pocket of his vest a straw and sniffed the heavy line he had prepared for himself before pushing the glass plate towards Pansy, who refused the offer, too down to take some again. The metis shrugged, took bake the dope and sniffed her line in a blink. He turned towards Theodore who did the same and then gave an elbow kick to the blond with the raging hormones that was sitting next to him.

Draco got out of his embrace with Astoria and turned on the side to sniff his line without even using the straw. His girlfriend, sitting on his laps, broke into a laugh when she saw his nose dirty with powder, then took the plate on which was only left her part and made it fall on her décolleté. Draco jumped on it the second later, his tongue licking the pale skin of the young girl, picking up the powder, then lifting up his head to kiss her in a way to share the drug with her. He then let his head fall into her décolleté once again and went to chase the remaining powder, Astoria laughing and moaning at the same time. The hands of the blond were following the curves of her tights in a determined stroke, pulling up by the same time her dress, and Pansy shook her head when seeing the beige textile of Greengrass' underwear. If being completely stoned despite her total amorphous state would help her from seeing this purely pornographic affective demonstration, Pansy would have completely done it. She turned her head away when Draco's hand touched the interior of his girlfriend's tights and rubbed her head. This freaking techno mixed with Astoria's high moaning were killing her head. She envied Theo and Blaise, dancing on the dancing floor, totally euphoric due to the illicit substance they had taken, in their own world.

The teenager sighed and, full of despair, took the Magnum bottle from which she drank a long gulp. She didn't care if she ended up drunk once again. She didn't care if she ended up puking once again in the stair case. There was nothing else to do, anyway. The brown-haired girl drank a second, and then a third gulp, feeling this familiar sensation slowly making her head turn around. She then stroke the glass plate with her index, picking up the few remaining powder, and consumed it while glaring at the room.

Her green eyes stopped on the barman at the other side of the room, and whose eyes did not stop looking in their direction, seeming both in rage and frustrated. In rage because he could not stand this fucking kids rich as hell occupying the VIP tables to take drugs, fuck on the couch and get drunk without even hiding it, as if they were the kings of this place. Frustrated because no matter his hatred toward them, he could absolutely do nothing. These kids disbursed a totally wicked sum of money in this bar, reason why his boss seemed to be closing his eyes on their debauchee. Reason why Pansy continued to lick her finger full of coke while glaring at him directly in the eyes, provocative smile on the lips.

No one could do anything against them. 

Draco went back home the next morning, around ten o'clock. He passed the hallway, walked the stairs four by four to attain his room and locked himself in. His first reflex was to put off his cloth and enter his bathroom to take a shower. Cold. He felt dirty, like each morning after a party. When he was going out to party, he never did thing half way, it was always too much. Too much alcohol. Too much sex. Too much drugs.

And, the next morning, he felt simply dirty. Physically and mentally.

The blond got out the shower cabin and fixed a towel around his hips. He stopped in front of his mirror and looked at himself, having difficulties recognizing himself. He had a pale skin, marked bags under her eyes, eaten cheeks and a lost glare. Even his blonde hair looked tern. A living-dead. Draco opened the door of the closet at the top of the sink, took a box of Xanax and one tablet. Only one to make his fall to the end of the hole a bit nicer.

He dried himself, ignored the three consecutives calls of Astoria and got out of his room at eleven o'clock sharp. In the living room, Narcissa, his mother, was smoking her ninetieth cigarette in a night dress, curler in her pale blond hair, while looking at a mode magazine. It was as if she did not remark her son has entered the room. The sound of the coffee machine activated by the high school boy did not seem to make her react too, and neither did it when Draco put with a brutal noise his cup on the table, right in front of her. The model on the photo shoot page she was looking at was, however, getting all her attention.

"We don't have any mind to be that fat," she muttered while lifting her cigarette to her lips.

She turned the page before slipping her tongue with a noise, disgusted.

"Fat." She turns the page. "Fat." Another page. "_Obese_."

Narcissa ended up throwing the magazine which ended at Draco's feet. He dropped a glance at the revue opened at the page his mother had been looking at. The model was at the very least size 0 for a meter seventy. Totally obese, indeed. He lifted up his eyes to Narcissa who was finishing her cigarette, her grey pearl eyes fixed on a point behind him.

There had been one time when she was that model, posing for every known magazine. There had been one time when she was that muse, inspiring all the artists and tailors. There had been one time when her beauty received glory from a part to another of the world. There had been one time when all the doors where held open for her. Now everything was gone. Disappeared. In ashes. She was only the shadow of the ancient Narcissa Black.

"_Clic – clic – clic"_

The mother and son turned in a same movement and saw a little brown-haired girl sitting by the other side of the window, her Reflex pointed in their direction. Hermione dropped her camera down and offered them a little smile.

"Hello. Eat well."

Narcissa inhaled in a disdainful manner and only exhaled a round of smoke before letting her glance drop on something more interesting – like this chair in front of her, for example. Draco however was not that peaceful. Posing brusquely his cup on the table, he got up of his chair and walked with big steps towards the brown-haired girl, pushing her on the wall, his hand around her neck with a strength sufficient to asphyxiate her.

"What did I tell you yesterday, bitch? You have a short memory, it seems," he muttered as Hermione became more and more livid due to the lack of air. "You seem to have problems getting that I don't want you taking pictures of me? What's so difficult to understand in that, uh?" He got her off the wall, but only to push her back on it with even more strength. "If I see you once again in the same room as me, know that I'll…"

"Draco, you let her go," ordered his father voice in his back.

The blond gave a suffocating Hermione a last menacing glance and then gave her back her liberty. As the teenager felt on the floor breathing noisily, in quest of air, Draco faced Lucius who was looking at him.

"Excuse yourself to her immediately."

"And what, you want me to bake her breakfast too maybe?" smirked off Draco.

Maybe did he deserved the slap that ended on his cheek the second later?

"Excuse yourself to her immediately."

Draco lifter his head up and gave him a glance full of hatred.

"All of you go fuck yourself," he attacked.

Narcissa watched her son leaving the room with an enraged step while tranquilly ending her cigarette. She grabbed her Philip Morris' pack and took another cigarette while, as a background sound, the girl with the Reflex shouted that she was quitting the project, quitting everything, that they were completely crazy, and so on. Looking through the pocket of her pearl grey satin night dress, the mother picked out a lighter and lighted her eight cigarette of the morning, not minding the teenager that was now sobbing near her. She took a first inhalation that she exhaled lazily in direction of the ceiling, Lucius trying to give reason back to the young girl behind the cloud of smoke full of nicotine. The blonde girl took another inhale that she rejected by the nose, indifferent to Hermione that was progressively calming down as the photographer told her whatever speech to make her stay. When she smashed her cigarette in the ashtray on the table, the living room was empty. 

Draco let himself fall on Blaise's bed while the Afro-British pushed the A button on his Xbox controller to activate the gun of the soldier at the screen. He killed at least ten enemies in less than seven seconds then hided his player in a forgotten house during the time when an enemy's soldier passed near him. The metis then took a deep shoot of his joint, coughed a little and passed it on to Draco. His glare fixed on the ceiling, the blond took three consecutives breaths and then installed himself comfortably in his own bubble, his semi-closed eyes hiding his dilated pupils. He was halfway to nirvana when Blaise's grave voice decided to bring him back on Earth:

"Why are you here?" he asked bluntly, as he was used to do.

Draco gave him back the joint as his forehead wrinkled.

"My dad's an asshole," he explained.

"… But then again?" tried to know more Blaise, smoke getting out of his mouth as he spoke.

The blond got on his elbows.

"Monsieur gave himself the permission to invite a girl coming from nowhere in our own house, to take photos of us no matter when, without our authorization, and all of this, in the name of art." He took the end of the cigarette Blaise offered him. "Everyone knows he'll end up fucking her – not as if his secretary was not enough." He took a deep breath and let the smoke enter his brain. "And my mother who sees all of this but does nothing." The blond exhale a greyish cloud while grimacing. "Shit family."

"Shit family, indeed," repeated Blaise in a mocking tone.

Draco glanced at his best friend.

He was living alone with his mother in a 180 square meter apartment that had belong to one of the multiple lovers of his mother. And that lover was dead right after giving all his belongings to Imane Zabini – oh! Great sadness! Since then, Imane collected lovers by package of hundreds. His father might be one of them, by the way, but Blaise had never known him and looked like he didn't give a fuck. Looked like. Draco knew that, deep inside, Blaise was lacking some father's love. Moreover that Blaise was seeing each week a new guy getting out of his mother's room. Some did the exploit of staying more than three weeks when some lasted only a few days. The major part of them were leaving at the beginning of the day. Blaise did not even make the effort anymore to remember their name.

Therefore, Draco understood that Zabini was sarcastic when the blond told him he has a shit family. He, despite everything, had had one, family, no matter she held the name of Malfoy and was completely insane.

"You really don't know what I'll give up to exchange lives, Zabini. Really. If you want, we can exchange house and you'll see my suffering."

"You really want to hear your mother moaning each night with a different man when you're trying to fall asleep?" said the metis while killing a soldier at the screen.

"You really want to know the feeling of not having a mother at all?" answered bluntly Draco.

"Game over", declared Blaise.

Draco's mobile phone suddenly vibrated in his pocket. The teenager held it off his jean and sighed a volute of smoke on the screen before looking at the name that was showing. And he sighed of exasperation.

"Astoria?" guessed his neighbor.

"Don't want to talk to her," muttered Draco while letting his phone drop on the floor.

Astoria, he loved her in three situations only: when they were both stoned, drunk or naked. The other half of the time, he found her sticky, naïve, and their discussions' subject did not fly high. He liked her, however, but she liked him more than he did. Much more than he did. And that was all what the problem was about.

"Yes?" answered Blaise at his place, putting the phone between his cheek and his shoulder while still playing. "Ah, hi Asto. You're fine? …Yeah, he's here…. No, he's sleeping… Nothing special. Why? …Oh really? ...Mmmh, alright, I'll see that with him then… Fine."

Blaise cut the phone call and then gave back the mobile to his owner.

"What did she want?" asked Draco.

"Seems like Millicent brought a packet full of ecstasy from Germany. They're all at hers."

Malfoy sighed while massaging his nose.

"They're seriously going to do that at three in the afternoon?" he whispered.

Blaise shrugged.

"There's nothing else to do, anyway."

And it was the scary truth. There was nothing else to do. They were in holidays, and Draco was there, lying on Blaise's bed, without the ambition of getting up in the coming hours. Without any future's project. Zabini himself had only been smoking and playing video games since this morning. And they'll go out at night to put their brain in fire with the help of small green pills, and their stomach at pain with alcoholics' cocktails. Then they'll be stoned during the next day only to start again the night after. And it was always the same routine. So yes, there was nothing else to do.

As if Blaise had read his thoughts, he put his game on pause and got up.

"Wait. I'll just take a shower and we'll go." 

After being expelled from the high school in which she had met Draco and his gang, Millicent Bullstrode had been sent to a catholic boarding school for girls in Stuttgart, from which she came back each vacation in England. Try to know how she did to pass the frontier and security check with the enormous plastic bag full of packet of ecstasy that she know held in her hand. There were of all colors, all shapes, for every taste. Astoria took one in a star's shape, Theodore took a stamp from the Bavière, Pansy one packet in a hand bag's shape, Blaise a bottle and Draco satisfied himself with a regular circular shape. The stereos were spitting music loudly in the apartment – "Everyone Nose" by N.E.R.D – and Millicent gave the depart signal for everyone to swallow their part.

Draco swallowed his, closed his eyes and waited. Waited. Waited. And suddenly…

"_A hundred dollar bills look at you! At you!"_

… That was it. The music was enveloping him, getting through his skin, making his heart pulse.

"_Because? All the girls standing in the line, for the bathroom!"_

The drums where almost piercing his ears.

"_All the girls standing in the line for the bathroom!"_

The lights were vivid, lightly saturated. Like a television whose color balance would be unwell fixed. It was making his eyes about to explode.

"_Superstar ask what you had, Bartender gives you drink, you just laugh."_

He got up and his body started moving all by himself.

"_Close your eyes, see colorful things, you wanna let go, feel wonderful things."_

He was dancing, jumping, liberating himself, and it was euphoria. Even better than powder. He couldn't stand in place.

"_A hundred dollar bills look at you! At you!"_

Everything was going at sound's speed. He couldn't even control his own body movement. And there was only music, music striking in each holes of his cranium, to dictate his steps.

"_All the girls standing in the line for the bathroom!"_

He fell down on earth almost as fast as he went up to the skies. 

Hermione sprinkled cold water at her face, and then searched everywhere, eyes closed, for a towel. Cleaning her face, the brown-haired girl lifted her face and looked at herself in the mirror. She raised her chin, glaring at the remaining red marks that this brutal Draco Malfoy had left on her neck.

She didn't call Ginny. Knowing her, the red hair would worry as much as not to sleep. She didn't call Harry too, a bit due to her ego. She couldn't admit that he was true when he tries to dissuade her from coming. Ron wouldn't have been a big help.

No, she wanted to deal with this case alone. The long discussion she had had with Lucius after this morning's accident had determined her to deal with this alone. Even more knowing that she was in a state of superiority in this affair. Lucius really cared about this project and he wanted Hermione to be the one to do it that is why he had invoked multiple reason for her to stay at the Manor. And she had decided to stay.

But Draco was still in the middle of her path. And he scared her. However, she wanted to pursue this project no matter what. Losing this opportunity surpassed, from far, any other fear. She had to adopt a strategy and confront the problem face to face in hope to pursue brilliantly her photography mission. And this strategy, she had it. She had thought about it all afternoon.

The brown haired put her hands on the ceramic sides of the sinkand took a deep breath while observing the Hermione in the mirror. The only thing left was to find a great liter of bravery deep inside her for her to execute her plan. 

Astoria took a pillow in gooses' feather and threw it on Pansy. The brown haired let out a little scream when receiving straightforwardly and slipped by the same time some drops of the vodka bottle she handled. She bended to take one of the pillows one the king-size bed on which they both were standing, in underwear, and then pursued Greengrass who was giggling. The girl ended up slipping on the bed and fell down on Millicent's bedroom's floor. And that made her laugh even more. Pansy stood up before her with a wicked smile and brought her Grey Goose bottle to her lips to take a sip. She then reversed a least half of the bottle on Astoria who was trying to get up.

Draco got back in the room at that moment, his two hands occupied at putting back his belt in place. He raised his head and watched his girlfriend running after Pansy, her hair completely wet, in thong and bras. She held up the little brown haired girl's ankle to make her fall and they both ended up on the floor. New drunk and stoned laughing crisis. Draco stepped above their body without minding it and took the bottle Pansy was holding to drink a long drop. He then touched Astoria's hip with his own foot.

"I'm leaving," he told her.

The young girl turned toward him awkwardly and gave him her little imploring face.

"So soon? We're just starting to have fun."

"You are, maybe. But I'm bored like shit," shrugged Draco.

He then turned his back to find his shoes as she tried to stand correctly on her both legs to come near him. She then put her arms around her neck, sticking her body dripping of vodka against the blonde's back.

"I can remediate to that, you know?" she muttered in his ears.

"Asto. You're drunk."

"And so what?" she continued, her hand descending all the way from his chest to under his belt.

Draco grabbed his wrist and got off her embrace.

"I'm leaving," he repeated, feeling this nausea he knew by heart starting to put in piece his stomach.

He slipped into his shoes, took his vest and committed the error of giving a last glance to Astoria. The teenager was looking at him as if she was about to start sobbing – in the background, Pansy was still standing on the floor like a drown siren, an arm hiding her face. He sighed and made a step forward to kiss her. Her mouth had a background sugar taste of ecstasy.

"You'll call me?" she asked in a small voice.

"Yeah," lied Draco before escaping.

He walked through the corridor and looked into the bathroom, thinking to find Blaise there. Instead, he found Theo and Millicent in full position, Millicent sitting on the sink. Draco did not even take the time to close the door back. Blaise was in fact in the apartment's living room, sitting in front of the TV, observing the screen without blinking. The sound was not on and the TV seemed to be diffusing a horror movie full of hemoglobin. If Draco didn't know that Zabini hated horror movies, he might have left him without thinking but instead of that, he went directly towards him.

When the Afro-British got stone, no matter what drugs he had consumed, he always felt the need to face his worst fears. Clean, he suffered from vertigo, stoned, he would walk on the borders of the roofs. He hated horror movies sober, he watched them continuously when drunk. And he wasn't even really paying attention to the story. The reason why the sound was shut. He concentrated himself on the pictures. The blood. The chain saw. The axes. The living dead. He impregnated himself from all of these, and ended up in a pretty impressive trance.

Draco clapped his finger in front of his eyes, making him jump a little.

"Stop phasing."

Blaise looked all around him, as if coming back to life, and then stopped his eyes on his best friend.

"You're leaving?"

Draco nodded.

"I have nausea."

Blaise nodded slowly and then went back to his movie. A cannibal had just appeared to bite the arm of one of his victims. Drago grimaced. Blaise didn't blink.

"You're hurting yourself," sighed the blond.

"Doesn't matter," shrugged the metis.

Draco observed him. Sometimes, he would have given much to enter this guy's brain and understand his logic, his language, how he works, enter his thoughts. Blaise was a fucking mystery.

Ending up tapped his shoulder, Draco left reluctantly the living room and then the apartment.

To see the electric lights in the street on surprised him. Had they been for so long in Bullstrode's apartment? Seemed like yes. Putting his hands in his pockets, Draco quickly walked the little distance between Millicent's building and Slytherin Road's impasse. And he felt it growing in him more and more. The nausea. It was like a disgusting skin, uncomfortable, contagious, that was enveloping him and killing his body little by little. He felt it when he was sober. Without any chemical and hallucinogen products to blur his mind. Without alcohol in his veins. Alone with himself. Alone with his shit life. Alone with his shit problems. Alone with his loneliness. Freakily alone. This nausea came to make him remember all those shit he had the little naivety to think they would leave him when he started swallowing the first substance by his hand. She waited that he slowly got off his cloud and came by him with little footsteps, sliding on the floor to attain his foot and, slowly, lightly, viciously, climbed up. And she was whispering in his ears: "I'm here, I'm always here, always, I'm here, I'm always here, right here, only for you, I'm here, I won't leave you, I will never leave you, I'll always be here, right here, near you, right here, only for you…"

A reason to fuck yourself out.

Draco walked by the principal alley of the Manor by sliding his feet, his half-consumed cigarette blocked between his index and his major. He had to go and take his habitual cold shower to get that second skin that was about to become his off him, but he also had to finish his cigarette. Dilemma. Deciding to stay on the floor of the entry hall, the blond finally took his last inhalation of nicotine inside. He didn't see – or maybe at the corner of his eyes, but the fact was that he didn't care about it – the blurred shadow getting down the stairs at his right, hesitating, but stepping one step down again. Stopping.

Malfoy took his last drop of cigarette and then smashed it on the Italian mosaic itself. He stood up with a grimace, raised his eyes and saw that little animal playing in his father's dress watching him back, from the top of the stairs. Irony; the roles were inversed from yesterday's. It was her who was watching him with furor, looking tensed and tired, her jaw strengthen, her fingers holding the bar of the stair with that much strength they had gotten white.

"What's your problem?" ended up asking the blond, seeing as she was looking at him.

"It's you." She stepped one step forward and pointed her finger in his direction. "I want excuses. You touched me even though I did absolutely nothing to you."

Draco sighed.

"Fuck off, will you? Simply fuck off."

"I knew that you'd not even see your wrongs. We can't wait for any excuses coming from someone as execrable as you, anyway," replied Hermione.

"Don't forget it's not yours here, big idiot. If I were you, I'd stop talking like this to this house's inhabitants if you don't want to end up outside in the second coming."

"I doubt that."

The blond raised an eyebrow.

"Excuse me?"

"I doubt it," repeated Hermione while getting one step further down. "Your father gave me the authorization to go to the police for a physical aggression."

And there, Draco had to feel something. He felt it in two times. First time: choc. His own father authorized a freaking stranger that started living at his suddenly to go to the police to report against his own son. His _own _son. Bloody hell. And… second time: nervous laugh. Because, if we looked clearly, if we thought about it twice, it wasn't even surprising. He dad was an ordure. He maybe never even wanted to have a son. So what's better than to jump on the first given occasion to send him to jail?

"Alright, do it, then," snickered Draco. "What are you waiting for? Run to see the cops! And you know what? Tell them that I touched you during the night too. I'm bloody certain they'll love it."

"I'll do better than that."

She stepped forward, but of two steps this time.

"You're going to cooperate to this photography project, and you're going to accept that I take photos of you," she ordered, "Otherwise, I'll go to the cops."

Draco couldn't help but smile.

"What? Are you bargaining now?"

"See that as you like," decided Hermione when finally arriving at the ground level. "But it's out of question that you're the one to make this project your father has given me a fail…"

"Oh, look at her!" muttered Draco. "She doesn't want to deceive her little gentle boss, isn't that cute. What's the prize if you win that thing? A return flight on Lucius Malfoy's lap?"

Hermione stood a moment silent, chocked by the way he spoke of his own father. Her silence however deepened the beliefs of the blond who pursued:

"You lost your tongue? Have I gotten it right then?"

"Lucius is in no way…"

"Lucius," remarked Draco, stepping forward her – they were at less than two meters from each other's. "You already call her by his little name? You look quite impatient, tell me. Or maybe did he give you the permission to call him that… You must feel unique don't you?"

"Luc… Mr Malfoy didn't…"

"And you think that it's by coming into _my _house, into _my _life, with the unique ambition to fuck Lucius like the freaking whore you are under your minable camera and your high school student's skirt, that you're going to shit my life by sending me to the tribunal for aggression?" He stepped forward again and Hermione stepped back, little scared by the figures on his face. "You think this is going to work on me? You think I'm afraid of your threats? Idiot. I strangle you when you want, and even harder, if you want."

"Don't come near me," she told him with a little unsteady voice the brown haired while holding at the ramp.

"What? Don't you want to see me? Don't you want to take my photos? Don't you want to immortalize my face in your toys objectives?" he snickered coldly, and he rudely took his wrist, seeing she was about to climb up the stairs.

"Let me go!" shouted Hermione, violently making him go of her wrist. "You're completely insane!"

"Feel sage, I'm not the only one to be in this house. Your Lucius gave me this pathology."

"It's not _my _Lucius! Stop with that!"

"I'll stop when you'll disappear from my sight and my life."

"In that case, you'll have to be patient, because I count on achieving what I started!"

"You're only a little brat who's…"

"You're bleeding."

"…And it's not bec… _what?_"

Hermione pointed his face with an awkward index.

"You're nose bleeding."

Draco touched the end of his face and looked at his fingers full of blood.

"Fuck."

He now felt a hot liquid dripping on his lips and filling his mouth with a blood taste.

"Fuck!" he repeated before climbing up the stairs four by four.

He opened brusquely his room's door, fighting against the urge to enter a crisis panic or something of this kind. He had already had one thing of the kind one day where he had had only done rails all the day. Too much drugs. He had also had this bad reaction when he was stressed too much. And, for this case, it really was Lucius who gave him this pathology. Entering his bathroom, he opened his pharmacy closet and threw everything that did not interest him. The blood was dripping abnormally, dirtying his clothes, dripping on the sink. The blond finally got a cotton box and pulled his head in the back with it to stop the hemorrhage. He stayed in this immobile position for at least ten minutes, his nose bleed slowly dropping down, his eyes fixed on the furious Draco in the mirror.

And he repeated to himself: don't enter a crisis. Don't enter a crisis. Don't enter a crisis. Don't _ever_ enter a crisis. 

Hermione centeredNarcissa's silhouette in the little screen of her camera. The young woman was walking in her garden, her loyal cigarette in her hand, her steps that aerial it felt like she wasn't touching the floor. She wore a white night dress in linen, and her hair were freely going down, two elements that were contrasting deeply with the black night of the outside. Erring with a small pace in the garden's alley, she looked like a specter who had come back to haunt the manor. Hermione took a series of photographs from above, catching on some of them the smoke getting out of Narcissa's lips. The ex-model finished by smashing her cigarette butt on the porch's stairs and got in, ringing the end of Hermione's photography's recreation. The young woman stood up, her Canon around her neck. It was almost one in the morning and she was in the suite the Manor's governess had given to her.

However, she couldn't fall asleep.

Sitting on one of the rocking chair of the room, the brown haired balanced forward and backward, thinking about how to occupy herself until Morpheus stopped pouting at her. Then came back to her the conversation she had with Mr Malfoy the same morning. He has given her the keys of his photo lab, authorizing her to use it whenever she wanted, as an ultimate tentative of persuasion. Hermione then decided to go there for the first time.

In her pajama, bare foot, the brown-haired got into the corridor after shutting out the lights and closing the door of her room. She walked with precaution towards the stairs going to the third floor – there were at least six floors in this Manor – and climbed up the creaking stairs trying to make the least sound possible. The lab was at the end of the corridor. Hermione stretched her hand to light on the interrupter but changed her mind, seeing that the last door of the corridor was opened. She walked by with little steps and gave a discrete glance inside. And what she saw almost made her fall in a trance.

You know, that trance that takes possession of artists when they know they're about to accomplish a masterpiece. Those itch, those pins and needles that make the blood boils in the veins, creating adrenaline. It was as if a little voice was whispering to you: _It's here. It's right here. Stretch your hand and you'll have it. _And there, Hermione only had to stretch her camera.

The room that got her in trance was in the penumbra; no lights were on. Only the moon who was shining fiercely in the sky lightened a little a quarter of the room, leaving the rest in the complete black. And there was Draco, the elbows on the border of the window, head down, cigarette in the hand. His arm holding the cigarette was stretched forward, the cigarette above the empty space, when his other hand was fold down in a ninety degrees angle on the bar. And his head was one the side, as if he was glancing at the floor, a few disorganized highlights shining with the pale blond light of the moon.

The cadre, the posture, the ambiance, the silence – everything was so fantastic Hermione felt like she needed to cry. It didn't matter that it was Draco. It didn't matter that he was awful, violent. It didn't matter that he scared him. For now, he was such a perfection she could only but admire. Ignoring such an occasion would be a sin.

So, slowly, really slowly, she stretched her camera and captured Draco in her screen. She photographed his back, then tried to move a little on the side, despite the risk of being seen by him. The risk was worth it. She had never felt a fire such as the one that was burning inside her right now. And that's when she saw the element that gave the final touch to this visual gift.

The mirror near the door.

He reflected his silhouette in a new angle, the circle of the moon shining above his head, enlightening him partially. We could almost say he was bending over her. Moreover, his cigarette almost seemed like touching the moon, a few volute of smoke flying away from the cigarette butt into the obscurity.

It was magical. This moment was magical. And Hermione captured it eternally.


	3. Chapter 3

**I'm sorry for updating after such a long time. I've just ended up translating the fourth chapter and def couldn't upload this one without having some backup. It's so intense translating one chapter of Trash Polaroïd that I can only but salute how the author must be suffering haha**

**Anyway, I really hope you'll enjoy that one, and sorry again for any mistakes that slipped in. **

**Love you much, have a nice time reading!**

**Ramyfan : I'd undoubtedly be scared as hell too! The french version is not finished yet, it has up to 17th chapters... so we have some great margin left! I'll try to update as often as possible. Thanks for your review!**

**Chapter 3**

_~ Body Electric – Lana Del Rey ~_

Narcissa made the door of her dressing slide on the side and stroked from the end of her finger the clothes aligned by hundreds until she reached the last one. Her wedding dress. She grabbed the hanger made of wood and took out the sumptuous cloth out of the closet. The textile was still of an immaculate white. Even though the door of her room was largely opened, Narcissa took off without embarrassment her night dress and then slid her legs one by one in the cloth's bustier to wear it. The dress stopped her progression when arrived at her hips, obliging the blonde to pull on it multiple times for the textile to finally marry her curves. She then walked towards the big mirror of the room, showing her full body, and tried her best to close her dress in the back. Once again, the task was not of the easiest, and Narcissa had to try four time for the dress to finally be perfectly sealed. However, it didn't matter that she felt completely compressed in it. The dress still fitted her.

The ex-model turned on the side and took her profile pose, just like we taught her before. A disdainful pout one the face, her luscious lips slightly opened, her breasts bombed, her stomach hidden at her best. _Mirror, ô mirror, tell me who's the most beautiful_. And the mirror answered, sadly.

_Look at yourself._

The grey eyes of the blonde slid down her silhouette.

_Look at your stomach._

Even though she tried to hide it, it still appeared prominent under her dress and created a slight rounder.

_Look at your hips._

Her chest was not built perfectly as it was before, and her hips were the principal place where her supplementary kilos were stocked.

_You think you're beautiful with all of these?_

Narcissa felt something creating itself in her throat. And there was it. It was climbing into her. Self-disgust.

_Look at how fat you are._

As if to convince her of this sentences, the textile slightly broke near the zipper. The ex-model tried to palp the place where the crack happened, but that was a really bad idea. The second later, the dress cracked a second time with an even brutal sound, opening in two the bustier.

_Look at how ugly you are._

Narcissa desperately tried to join the two parts of her cloth and then fixed her reflect. And what she saw did not please her at all. Wrinkles, marks under her eyes, pale tone, fake nose, collagen-lips. Fake everywhere in a body composed of 90% of fat. Everywhere. In her cheeks, in her neck, in her arms, in her breasts. A big pack of fat.

_It's certainly not an __**obese **__like you who would be the most beautiful._

"It's false," muttered Narcissa, almost terrified, while painfully facing herself.

_It's true. And you know it. Look at yourself._

Her sight was already blurred by the coming tears while the acid taste of bile perfumed her saliva. And there was this woman, this _thing _that was looking at her in the mirror. It was not her. She refused it to be her.

_Look at yourself._

It was in her head, all this voices. It was all in her freaking head. All those medicines, those anti-depressors, those anti-hunger, it had crushed her brain until it turned her crazy. Until she could hear those specter murmuring horrible things in her ear. And, however, she couldn't help herself from feeling affected and destabilized by these voices. Feeling completely down.

"It's not me," she refuted.

_Yes. It is you._

"IT'S NOT ME!" screamed Narcissa while crashing the mirror with her hand. "IT'S NOT ME! GO AWAY! YOU'RE NOT ME! DISAPPEAR! DISAPPEAR!"

Her dress was now cracking from everywhere, but the blonde did not care. She let go of all her rage on the glass, no matter the small portions that got into her skin, punching, killing, pulverizing the Narcissa of the mirror to nothing in a lake of blood. The forty year old woman ended up on the floor, sobbing, long shining red traces ruining her nuptial dress.

This is how Draco found her. And when his eyes felt on the bloody portrait of his mother on the ground, the broken mirror near her, his mind put up to piece terrific conclusions that made him run towards her. He took her by the shoulders and shaked her.

"Mum? Mum!"

But her head was only rolling on the side on the rhythm of her trembling body, her blonde hair falling completely disorganized on her face.

"Mum! Damn, what have you done now? Shit answer me! Mum! _Mum!"_

He was shouting but she stayed completely amorphous, unconscious, however she had a pulse and her eyes were slightly opened. The heart bump of her son were completely erratic. And he kept on shakingher. In vain.

"…what is going on?"

Draco jumped slightly and turned brusquely. Again that freaking weasel. She was standing on the doorstep, her thing with a focus around her neck, and was looking at them as if they were a rating-K spectacle.

To tell the truth, Hermione had been alerted by Narcissa's shouting. Thinking that something serious happened, she had climbed up the stairs in direction of the sound's source but had seen Draco before her and entering the room while running. Then she had heard him shouting too and had decided to go and see the reason of all of this, hopping not to see the worst that could have happened.

"Nothing's going on. Go away," snuffled Draco.

Hermione did not do so. Instead, she looked at Narcissa anxiously.

"Should I call an ambulance?"

"Go. Away."

"But we have to call someone!" persevered Hermione.

Draco was about to stand up and make her shut once for all when Narcissa slightly turned her head on the side.

"Mum!" He placed an arm under her head. "Mum, mum!" She opened slightly more her eyes and he sighed of relief. "Fuck, don't ever do that again to me!"

The light shoulders of his mother then started trembling faster and faster as tears made their way from her eyes to the end of her cheeks. She was crying. Her lips moved without a sound and Draco could not hear what she said. He inclined his head to her mouth and could finally hear some of what she was saying.

"…it's not me, it's not me, it's not me…"

He stood up and observed his mother. She seemed to be in a kind of trance slightly turning into pure madness. He looked down on her hands and saw the bloody carnage what happened. He had to disinfect all of this really fast but the needed material was in the bathroom. And he definitely could not leave her, not even a little second, afraid she might do one of the biggest error of her life. The blond slightly turned his head and his tormented grey eyes ended up on Hermione's silhouette. She was still there, that one? Well, for once, it was for the best.

"Hey!" he called out for her, clapping his fingers in her direction.

Hermione stepped forward.

"Go and get me the safety purse in the bathroom. It's in the pharmacy closet."

He then turned his attention back on his mother and took one of her wrist to evaluate the damage. It was really ugly. There were big parts but also ridiculously little bits implanted more or less profound in her… Draco suddenly stood up. Turned his back. Hermione was still there.

"What are you still doing here?" he said.

"A "please" would kill your jaw?" she replicated coldly.

"Do you _really _think it's the most appropriate time to talk about politeness?"

"I'm not talking about politeness! It's the most basic thing ever! We learn that in kindergarten!"

"PLEASE!" he then screamed. "Is that okay? Is that okay for you? Are you going to search for this fucking purse now? Or do you want me to bend before you?"

Hermione furiously turned her heels away. This boy was the most detestable, the most hateful man she had ever met. It really was difficult to believe he was the masterpiece she had photographed the day before.

She brusquely pushed the door of Narcissa's bathroom and looked at each closed. A hundred of perfumes, lotions, brushes, creams and makeup later, the teenager finally found the wanted purse. In fact, she was simply in the little glass closet that was on the top of the sink. Back in the room, Draco almost pullet the purse out of her hands to extract all he needed. Compresses, disinfectant, bandages and tweezers.

"Clean that out," he said when giving the rest to her. "_Please"_, he added disdainfully.

And it was Hermione's turn to pull it out of his hand violently. She went back to the bathroom to put it back at its place but, when shutting the door's closet, her eyes stopped on the spectacle that was offered to her by the reflect.

Still sitting near his mother, Draco was occupied at putting off the glass's pieces that were incrusted in Narcissa's hand one by one thanks to the tweezers_. _His face was full of a concentrated expression, his movements precise and meticulous. Each time he took one piece out of her flesh, he raised his head to verify that his mother's face wasn't showing any suffering sign. But Narcissa's face was still turned on the side, her blonde highlights falling all over her forehead. And she was still crying, that was all she was doing. Therefore, he opened the disinfectant bottle, wetted the compress and passed it on the damaged skin. And Narcissa kept on crying.

Once again, Hermione felt that itch that had taken her the day before. Feeling it in such a context was totally disrespectful and egoistic but she couldn't do anything against it. Her fingers had already closed themselves on her camera. She took her to her right eye and directed her lenses towards the glass closet. And that was it, she had her cadre. Her finger pressed a dozen of time the capture button and the camera took Drago and his mother in her bloody dress in every possible angle. The Canon she was using was pretty silent, which helped her not getting caught, but she regretted that it would not offer her a result as great as it if was done with her Nikon. A few pixels more or less could completely change a photo.

Her task ended, Hermione got off of the bathroom at the moment when Draco circled one of Narcissa's hand with a bandage. She stood a moment a few steps away, even more due to Malfoy continuing to take care of his mother's scares without giving her any attention. Therefore, she got out reluctantly of the room.

"So, how's it going on?"

Hermione let herself fall on the princess-like bed of her room. Her ceiling was made of mirror, which had first perturbed her, but she had finally gotten used to it and ended up thinking it was a genius idea. At night, she did not put the lights on and played during hours with the nocturnes' reflect. The glass of her closet, for example, reflected itself infinitely in the ceiling, reproducing Hermione's silhouette in a smaller and smaller size. The young girl could not even count how many times she had let herself at photographing diverse scenes she had created of all piece.

"It's going alright," answered the brown-haired while observing the Hermione of the reflect, lying on her bed, her phone at her ear.

"Oh my, you seem pretty less enthusiastic!" remarked Ginny at the other side of the line.

Hermione sighed.

"Well… The thing is that the house's atmosphere is completely wicked but, on the other side, I'm living unique experiences and this helps to equilibrate with the bad karma of this stay."

"Bad karma? What happened?"

Hermione opened her mouth, about to say all the truth, but changed her mind.

"Nothing special. Only… It's only something I fell, you know? But it will be fine."

"I'm sure too. Harry has literally harassed me yesterday for me to call you, to verify that they hadn't sequestrated you somewhere in their basement."

"No way what a freak!" laughed Hermione. "Put him at peace by assuring him that it has been reported to next week. Lucius Malefoy's calendar is a bit occupied these times."

"Hahahah don't worry I'll tell him. Oh, by the way, is their house as big as people say it is?"

"Oh my God, if only you knew…"

The two friend talked during a good hour at the phone. Hearing Ginny's voice did much more good to her than she would have first suspected. She had been living in such a pressuring atmosphere this last days that finding back a peaceful and well known element had completely recharged her great mood's battery.

The high school student ended the call with a wide smile and sat on her bed. She had for a program today to errand in the castle in which she had come to live. He seemed to be full of mystery and secrets, memories and loads of things that would definitely help her understand better the three Malfoy's family members, since two of them had decided not to open themselves to her.

After lifting up her hair in a disorganized chin, Hermione left her Canon for an film-based photography, the same as the one on her national photography prize won award, and went to adventure.

Deciding to do her visit the right way, she descended down the stairs towards the ground level. Arrived at the top of the last stairs, the brown-haired stopped when she saw a tall metis nonchalantly waiting against the entry door, arms crossed, absent glare fixed on the guard rail. Then on her. He observed her from head to toes, slowly, and Hermione thought she was living again her arrival at the Manor except that, this time, the Afro-British facing her wasn't glaring at her with disdain.

"Draco is here?" he finally ask in an exceptional low voice.

Hermione nodded and then answered :

"Yes. He should be upstairs."

The half-blood nodded then slipped his hands in his pockets, not stopping his observation of her. There was something clearly disturbing in the way his clear brown eyes were glaring at her without blinking. As if he could guess what she was thinking. Hermione was not of the type to get her eyes down however for this visual fight, she preferred giving up and hid in the living room next door. There, she sat on one of the green velvet couch and gave frequent glare to the blurred glass of the door. When the half-blood's silhouette disappeared, followed by Draco's, the high school student left her hiding place to finally begin her exploration.

Draco closed his room's door and walked towards the stairs while shaking his lighter. He brought the flame to the beginning of his joint and then went downstairs until his house's entry hall.

"You're so slow, it's distressing", welcomed Blaise while finally getting off the door.

The blond shrugged while taking a first blow. He went outside the first and squinched when he saw the big sun up in the sky. It was six in the afternoon and it still looked like we were in the middle of the day.

"How much do you have on you?" he asked his best mate.

"Hundred box. You?"

"Two hundreds."

"It's more than enough." assured Blaise while taking the join between Draco's fingers to put it between his own lips. "I saw your official photographer before."

"Oh yeah?" reacted Draco without being really interested while verifying something on his smartphone.

"Yeah." He exhaled a volute of smoke. "And she's average cute."

Malfoy looked at his mate as if he had fallen on his head. Blaise was a pretty difficult one when we talked women. To see him give an adjective such as "cute" was an event as unique as a snow tempest in summer.

"Sorry to say it so bluntly, mate, but you have shit in the eyes."

"I don't believe so, no," answered peacefully Zabini while giving him back his cigarette. "She had really beautiful eyes, by the way."

"Well why don't you shag her, then." decided Drago in a shrug. "You'll just have to as my father's approval before. I think he wants complete exclusivity on her crotch."

Blaise had a small laugh.

"I'll think about it."

The two friends took the bus that made them leave their upper residential area for the popular London situated at the North extremity of the city. The houses with gardens and terraces now changed for towers covered of graffiti, Blaise and Draco went along the asphalted alleys, hands in their pockets, with an alert eye. The hald-blood crossed eye with a tall red head in cap, Adidas tracksuit and gaped sneakers. The latter made a small gesture of the head and got into a gloomy alley in between the two buildings behind him. After stopping a little, the two teenagers followed him.

"What do you have?" asked Draco.

« T'as quoi ? » demanda Draco.

The dealer took out of his pockets two 50g portions of powder under aluminium with two small plastic bags containing three pills each.

"Coke, Kéta, Ecsta." he named.

"We take it all". Malfoy took out his wallet. "How much? "

"Four hundreds."

Draco raised his eyebrow.

"What?"

"Four hundreds."

"Three hundred fifty."

"Four hundreds, mate," stressed out the dealer. "The prices have raised."

"Alright, and if we take the coke out?"

The red head put one packet back in his pocket.

"Three hundreds."

"Fuck, it was the powder that costed that high? What do they put in it? Gold?"

"It's pure coming from Colombia, asshole. So either you take, either you leave."

"Pay, Draco." argued Blaise behind him.

The Afro-British gave him a few box that Malfoy took while assassinating his interlocutor with his eye. The blond then took his wallet to find some money to complete the sum.

And what happened next happened as quick as a flash.

Blaise, who has stayed behind prudently, suddenly appeared to his side, pulling off the drugs from the dealers hand and throwing them behind the bricks stored near Draco. He then pulled his friend backward while shouting :

"RUN!"

The half-blood ran at all speed and, without understanding what it all was about, Malfoy followed him. And he was right to do so. Behing them, not less than three cops dressed as civils were running after them while ordering them to stop immediately. The fourth one had already neutralized the dealer without him even being able to think he had to run away.

Malfoy ran like he had never ran before, his lungs burning so much in his thoracic cage that he had difficulties to breath, the scenery was blurred around him, his eyes fixed on Blaise's blurred silhouette that was running before him. Sadly for them, four other cops arrived from the opposite side and they both ended up violently on the ground in less time than needed. Draco vainly tried to debate but he received a gigantic kick in the eye from the colossal man that held him.

"And now, little fucker, you stay calm while I investigate you." His left hand started to palp brusquely his upper body while his right hand took him by his hair, pulling out a great handful of highlights. "And you better not move an inch or I'll punch you between the eyes." He verified his vest's pocket. "The aristocrat's fuckers like you are my favorites." Jean pockets. "You believe that because you have more money than anyone, the world belongs to you, but bad news my friend," Thighs and tibia. "if I find a slightest trace of drugs on you, you'll end up in jail like any other and none of your money could change that."

However, he had to search twice to find this coke trace. Draco had nothing on him. And to judge Blaise's cop expression, it was the same for him.

"Don't think it's over for you," whistled Malfoy, "Next time I see in the area, I won't let you slip away."

Draco gave him his best mocking smile.

"Come on, get off here!" he spitted while letting him go.

The high school student didn't wait for them to beg. They disappeared running slightly, and erred in the city until they got lost. Going into a building's entry hall whose door was kicked, the two teenagers sat on the bench facing the postbox to breath a little. Outside, the sun had used their running away time to disappear, putting the streets in a light blue color of an evening beginning. Draco took his phone out his pocket and placed the screen in front of his face.

"Oh fuck" he muttered, discovering the ugly purple black-eye that was decorating his eye.

Blaise turned towards him and winced.

"He got you good."

"May he die," declared Draco while touching carefully the black-eye.

"May they all die," sighed Blaise, posing against the wall, eyes closed.

They stood a moment without talking, one of them evaluating the damages on his face, the other standing still, eyes closed, as if doing space in his mind. Multiple people passed by them to rejoin their apartment without their curious glare disturbing the two teens.

"Anyway," started Blaise, "this story made us learn a crucial moral."

Draco gave him a look oh the side.

"Which one?"

The mixed-race guy opened slightly his eyes.

"Regularly change your dealer."

The two young men crossed their eyes. A second later, they were laughing, incorrigible.

It has almost been an hour since Hermione had appeared in that little boudoir situated at the end of the ground floor's corridor. Decorated in a Versaille's style - with carpet on the floor, Louis XVI's velvet sofas, porcelain service on the lower table - this little room made the high school student think about the little leaving room of Marie-Antoinette in Sofía Coppola's movie. She who loved the Roi Soleil was served.

There was a complete library-wall full of encyclopedias. At least, that was what the young girl believed before she opened one of them, and realized it was photo albums. All the shots, without any exception, were of Narcissa. Each single one of them. There were fashion photos, artistic photos, amatory photos, intimate photos. Hermione was sitting, legs crossed, on the floor itself, to devour each one of this books one by one.

This woman was beautiful, so beautiful. Long blond peroxide hair, aced and piercing eyes, cold magnificent expression, perfect size, long and well shaped legs. The perfect muse dreamed by every artist. Hermione really didn't have any problems getting why Lucius had married her.

The high school girl looked at each plasticized page one by one, staying at least a minute per page, afraid that she might miss a detail. And she felt on one Narcissa with a pregnant's round stomach, sitting on a sofa that seemed to be the living room's one, wearing a black and classy turtle-neck, her legs crossed. A big smile was on her red lips, for a change, and it enlightened all her figure, her happiness lighting on all the photograph. It was that contagious that Hermione couldn't help but smile too, as if sharing this mother-to-be's joy.

And what shock it was she felt when she saw the next page's photo.

There was only her face, to say the truth, and it was what made this so brutal, so violent. Her eyes slightly injected of blood looked at the camera with a painful and almost wet stare, as if she had just cried all the tears of her body out. Bags under her eyes were marking here pale tone and blue veins were clearly drawn on her forehead and face seemed to have become thinner and she looked like she only had her skin left on her bones, as her cheeks' frame was clearly visible. Her lips were damaged, blue. It was both breathtaking and terrifying. Even more knowing it was the last photo of the album.

Hermione compared the two last shots, her eyebrows furrowed. What could have change ? Why such a fall ? What had happened between these two periods ? The brown-haired took out with precaution the first rectangle to verify if any further hint could be at its back. Which was true, as an italic writing told her that Narcissa had been photographed on avril 13th 2005, at five months pregnant. 2005? From whom was she pregnant? Draco? Totally impossible, Hermione and him shared the same age, with maybe Draco being slightly older. Could it be that a fourth Malfoy's family member existed? Ho ho ho... the brown haired took out with curiosity the last shot of the book and turned it back. 28th of May 2005, 6th month of pregnancy, miscarriage.

"You find your happiness?"

Hermione closed the photo album in a jump, and climbed to her feet in a suspect speed. Lucius himself was standing at the doorstep, arms crossed.

"I'm... I'm truly sorry," started apologizing immediately the brown hair. "I never should have entered your..."

"No, it's fine, make yourself home." authorized Lucius before pointing the library from the chin. "Do you find anything rather the matter?"

"Err..." started Hermione, the word miscarriage coming back in her head like the flashing lights of a car. "Nothing special, for now."

The photographer had a mocking smile and the high school girl knew he knew she was lying. However, thanks God, he didn't try to make her tell the truth.

"Tomorrow, you'll come at the office with me." he told her. "I thought you might like to see how I work."

"I'd love it", answered enthusiastically the brown haired.

"Perfect. I'll be leaving around eight. You'll have to wake up early."

Hermione religiously nodded. Lucius stepped backwards, ready to leave her alone.

"Well then, I leave you to your discoveries", he smiled, a bit sarcastic - Hermione was sure of that. "Don't go to bed to late."

And he left the room. Now alone, the high school girl sighed while closing her eyes. She then turned around to put up the photo album at their place quickly.

It was only when the library was full that she realized she had forgotten to put the two Narcissa's photos back. Hermione bent to the ground to grab them and watched them one last time. And the brown haired could not explain what she did after that. After taking a quick glance at the boudoir's door, she slipped the photo in the back pocket of her jean, and left the room.

Draco smashed the entry door behind him and regretted that he arrived that soon as he fell face to face with his father. The latter gave me that particular glance dedicated to him only. A mix of disdain and mockery.

"Beautiful," he commented, pointing at his black-eye.

"You think?" Draco replied. "I thought you'd like it."

"Arrogant brat," whistled Lucius, the mockery in his eyes now gone for disdain only. "This will cost you everything one day."

He closed his lips, gave him a last cold look, then turned his back at him to climb up the stairs. Magisterial, thought Draco while seeing him disappear at the first floor with a proud aristocratic step.

The high school boy directed himself towards the corridor and pushed the kitchen's door to find some ice to put on his black-eye. He opened the freezer and took a pack of frozen vegetables which he placed on his face. Lifting himself up on the working place, he kept the packet a long time on his black-eye and closed his other eye. When he opened it back, the usual weasle was at the doorstep.

"Will it become an habit of going wherever I am?" raged Draco while putting off his face his improvised pack of ice.

"Stop putting yourself in the middle of the universe. I'm only here to take some water." muttered Hermione.

As if to prove what she just said, the high school girl went to the sink, took one of the whisky's glass near it and fulfilled it entirely. While she drank it, the teen could feel the blond's glare burning her neck. Once she had finished her glass, she washed it and then put it back where it first was to finally turn around. Draco was observing her as if he had the ability to disintegrate her molecule by molecule until she would completely disappear from earth. And Hermione suddenly was exhausted by all this play.

"I'm not the devil, as you seem to believe, so slow down all this aggressive side of yours." she told him. "I didn't know I would mean this prize. I even less knew I would be asked by your father to come and live here to take photos. Even thought I think this opportunity is complete dope, I've had never ever preview this to happen. And I understand that you might get angry at having someone always around you, but I've got a work to do, so you'll have to live with it. Ignore me if you want, I'll do the same. The only thing I'm going to ask you is to not make my life any complicated because, trust me or not, I could do the same to you."

She stood a moment watching him, waiting for him to say something. But he kept absolutely silent. And he suddenly jumped a little, as if waking up.

"What? Oh! You're done?" he shouted. "Sorry, I fell asleep at "prize". To say how fascinating your unnecessary talking was to me."

Hermione wrinkled her eyes, eating back one by one each bad words that were about to trespass the frontier of her lips.

"Go die", she spitted before walking with big steps towards the kitchen's entry.

"That's it. Close the door when you leave."

Hermione did better; she tapped the door with so much strength it almost broke out.

"That's it! Break something here, to give a little laugh!" mocked Draco. "Idiot."

He layed down on the table on which he was sitting, his pack of ice still on his painful eye, then sighed while closing his eyes. The worst was that he saw that stupid amator photographer in his mind as soon as he closed his eyes. She was still standing in front of me, talking about who-knows-what nonsense. Her high pitched voice were giving his nerves a hard time so the blond ordered his brain to cut out the volume.

There was only her silhouette against the sink and her weaseleyes left. Her big amber eyes in an almond shape were looking at him insistently, as she was stupid enough to wait for him to give her whatever answer.

But he was forced to admit that this freaking Blaise was right. She had beautiful eyes.

* * *

**Don't hesitate reviewing, it cheers up the author and motivates the translator! See you soon, dears.**


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